Week of Thanksgiving

This week we had the great privilege of hearing from an apostle of the Lord. It was an amazing conference. Elder David A Bednar started the conference by explaining how the conference would work. There would be three different parts. First, we would discuss two talks we were given two weeks before the conference. Second, we talked about the way we talked about the talks. And Last we asked him questions. First, the talk we were given are truly incredible, but when we discussed them, there came a whole new light in the room. He asked volunteers to talk about parts that they thought were interesting and after say why they caught their attention. At times he commented on a few of them. We all learned from one another. We then discussed why this process of asking questions was so effective and why it brought the spirit. We are to apply this in our teaching. He said that when we ask a question that is unspecific or has one answer that the student may not know (like a test) we are setting ourselves up for failure. We are making the students objects and not people. It's the difference between things that act and things that receive action. It was very insightful.

He also spent a few moments ranting about the false traditions the church has. We really grabbed a part of his personality. He asked us why we all take notes. Why do we write down everything the speaker says only to never look at it again. "that's stupid! Stop doing that!". The funniest part was when he was talking about trunky missionaries. He has a pet peeve which is missionaries who waste the Lord's time. He said he hates it when a missionaries goes up to the front on sacrament meeting to say "well, I only got five months left..." He said "Don't do that! I just want to say to that missionary to sit down and shut up. No one cares how much time you have left on the mission!" He is very direct and very funny.

My favorite part of the question section was when he talked about the other apostles. He said that when he was on his mission the youngest apostles were Gordon B Hinkley, Thomas S Monson, Boyd K Packer, and L Tom Perry. He said is was like a dream to enter into the quorum. He said they treat you like you were always a member of the quorum. He talked about how they are all examples of leadership. He told a story about an apostle over the age of 80 that had a double knee replacement surgery. He performed both surgeries on the same day healed in three week and walked into the church office on a walker. He did all this right after the October conference so that he could be recovered by the spring conference and no one would ever know. He said that they are his heroes. He said, "you know the story of Captain Moroni in the Book of Mormon. Yeah, well I work with captain Moroni." They are all warriors, full of courage and faith.

There are so many things I could say about the conference, but time does not permit. 

Other than the conference, we had an activity in the ward on Friday. It was a lot of fun. Rosane and Adriano showed up. They really enjoyed it, but they didn't go to church. I WANT TO BAPTIZE THIS FAMILY!! But they have to go to church... I will have to have a talk with them. I love them so much. Any advice? 

Love you all so much. The church is true. The book of Mormon is the work of God and is the most correct book on the earth. I just finished reading the Liahona all about the Book of Mormon last month. Way cool. We follow a living prophet today. It is all true. It isn't a myth. Joseph really did see the Father and the Son. This is Christ's church.

Com amor,

Elder Walker

November 14, 2011 Cameron training a new missionary

Dear Family,

     Sorry to hear about mom’s state. Hope she gets better soon. My week has been rather different just because I am training a new elder. My new Elder’s name is Elder Assis Silva. He is from Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. As a new missionary he does weird, quirky things. He is really worried about cars the cars hitting us and is there to protect me. He also refused to go down really steep stairs until he got brave and went down crab style. It wasn’t that steep. It’s all quite cute the way he worries about all these little things. It’s a really different experience. It’s hard to believe that I once was like him. I know that he will adapt well.

Rosane and Family. Rosane knows that the book of Mormon is true. She read a few chapters and is already applying things to her life. It was really quite special. Unfortunately they all traveled this past week. It's a holiday today. I can't wait to baptize this family. We talked to her about marriage as she is living with a man. She seems a bit insecure about this step. She accepted our help to be baptized. Luckily she has her member friend, Walter, who told her how blessed she will be if she gets married. She has fears because she already did the whole marriage thing, and it didn't work out the way she planned. She thought it was supposed to be for her whole life. We explained how marriage can be something for more than just this life. She was born to be a member of the church. It appears like it was this that she has been looking for her whole life.

Funny moment: There's a member in the city that plays pranks on the new missionaries. He comes up to them like an investigator with a ton of questions. We happened to run into him on the street. He asked from his car, "Are you the Mormons?" My comp not knowing who he is responded "that's us". Here I am trying my best to not break into laughter. My companion starts inviting him to listen to our message and explaining to him what a missionary is. Of course, the member is there asking all these crazy questions about stuff like polygamy. Finally the member says that he can stop by his house someday and he pulls out his wallet to show him the address of his house. He pulled out his temple recommend to show Elder Assis his name. It was then that my comp realized it was all a joke. classic. 

I know the church is true. The gospel was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. This is the only church with the true doctrines and authority to perform the ordinances of the gospel. 

With Love,

Elder Walker

November 14, 2011 Greetings from Spain

¡Hola!

How is my favorite family in the whole world?  Mom how is you´re health?  You need to start taking it easy on yourself.  If I was there I would be doing the chores for you, playing taxi, and waiting on you, like you have done for us our whole lives.  Ryan, I am very proud of you and your accomplishments!  Now that you have your license be safe on the road!  Especially in the rain with that truck.  Emily, keep that beautiful smile on your face!  You have to experience some rejection before you find success!  Sometimes the better option is just waiting for us and we don´t realize it at that point in time.  There were many auditions where I didn´t make it or get the part I wanted, but there was a lot of auditions I did.  Something even better always follows.  Craig, how was the temple?  Do you keep visiting?  Try to get sessions in while you can.  Dad, thanks for all of the updates!  I love hearing them.  Glad to hear work is good!  Tell Blake congrats, and tell Mark hello for me.  Time flies.  Can´t believe how fast everyone grows up.

This week was slow and hard for some reason.  Now that it´s getting cold I feel like everyone´s gotten grumpier or is in hybernation.  I am now starting to realize what everyone says when they say how hard a mission is.  But on the positive side we did get another person with a baptism date!  I am just learning a lot of patience.  It´s good for me.  You asked about my health....well lets just say my body is having a hard time adapting to the way the food is processed here.  But i´m okay.  A mission is just mentally, physically, and spiritually exausting.  I figured that when I was getting myself into it.  But I took a long 3 hour nap today and am ready to bust a move this week!!!!!

We had Zone Enfoque which President came and really emphasized on companionship unity and always staying together.  When we aren´t obedient it leads to unhappiness.  It´s always awkward here with the kisses on two cheeks because first of all with americans you go in for the kisses and then they end up going for just the hug (Hermana Hinckley)  and it ends up just being this hug kiss on the cheek awkwardness altogether.  haha.  or you get all the latin men who take advantage of the 2 kisses on the cheek and you shove your hand out there before they can even consider it.

There was a bull fight this week in town where a man had the bull horns go through his throat, up his mouth, then poked out his eye.  He is still alive and is back in the bull pit this next week.  Crazy!

Ya know we´re in church probably the same time!  We have it from 4-7 here.  SO LATE!  but it´s fine.  It´s so expensive here too!  A Euro is $1.35 in US dollars.  But it has gone down ten cents from 2010.

Anyway, I love you all.  Believe in Christ and if you believe in Christ you will believe in the Book of Mormon, and if you believe in the Book of Mormon you will believe Joseph Smith to be a true prophet of God, and if he is then this work is God´s work on the earth. 

Have a great week!

-Hermana Walker

November 8, 2011

Dear Family,

Well, I am writing on Tuesday because I had to go to Rio yesterday for a training. I was called to be a trainer again, and with the new program for trainers that the church is doing (which no doubt Marissa knows) I will train for twelve weeks and my goal is to prepare this new missionary to be able to train another at the end of the 12 weeks. Exciting. There are 11 trainers and 11 that will arrive...a few americans, a few brazilians, and one that speaks spanish. We will meet them in two and a half hours from now. More details to come next week.

This final week with Elder Branco was excellent. We work very well together. Of course we are very different, but our different styles compliment each other. Where I lack, he's there to help. I told President in interviews that I had never done 140 contacts in one week (which is always the goal). He challenged me to start now. We took the challenge and literally talked with everyone. We managed 168!! That's a record. We found so many new people to teach!!  The ward is loving us two. They don't want us to leave. Elder Branco bore his testimony on sunday and happened to say that he might leave this week. Everyone started to cry. I usually don't tell people when the transfers are, but he made sure everyone knew. So, as you can imagine, lots of tears and exchange of address.

More exciting news. I was talking about Maykon and Eleziene. We baptized maykon a few months ago and baptized Eleziene (his friend) a few weeks ago. Now they are officially dating!! So, in a roundabout way, I baptized a family! (If they get married)

Adriano. He didn't go to church because he went to a soccer game in Rio that he had already paid for. We let him go this tie, but i am 90 percent sure that we will get him next week. He was destined to be baptized. After him, we'll get the rest of his family.

Love you all. Don't have as much time today.

Com amor,
Elder Walker

Viva España November 14, 2011

¡¡¡¡¡Hola Familia!!!!!

 

Merry Christmas darling!!!  Yes we put up our Christmas tree and yes we listen to Christmas music everyday!  They don´t celebrate Thanksgiving obviously so ya.  We went full out!  They have a lot of Saint holidays here though...like a ton!  Also my compañion and everyone is saying not to send a package to me.  My compañion just had to pay $26 just to retrieve a dinky package this week.  Because they´re in a crisis here in Spain they come up with the excuse to inspect packages then charge a ton of money.  So therefore mother, don´t worry about sending me anything...JUST SEND MONEY, "HOW ABOUT TENS AND TWENTIES?"  lights please....(Cameron) 

 

Ya sorry Mom I don´t get on the internet until later now on Mondays because of mediodia.  You might ask what is mediodia?  Well let me tell you....a great big giant siesta or nap!  Everything closes at 2pm in town...EVERYTHING!  kind of annoying when you need to go to the grocery store or something but hey.  They open back up at 4pm though, so only 2 hours.  But the library I write at doesn´t open until 3pm and we´re usually busy doing something fun with the Elders.

 

ALSO Graham Bradley I need your help!!!!  Abel....I can´t figure out why he isn´t baptized yet.  They´ve been to conference in SLC, felt the spirit, they´ve been in contact with the missionaries for 11 years now.  We had a long chat while I was helping him and his senior friends at the senior center out with English.  I got blunt with him and asked if he had ever prayed specifically with all his heart to know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God, he said he hadn´t so I asked if he would do that, he said he would but then kind of admitted that he already knows it´s true and wouldn´t be baptized unless it were in Utah with all of his friends there.... and I just said well you´d better start sending out the invitations now!  haha anyway he had a bunch of pictures of you and talks a lot about you.  so maybe you can help me.......

 

We received 5 new missionaries this week here in Zaragoza.  It was just us two and the zone leaders.  Now we are a district of 10!!!!  Woo!  So fun!  We played a bunch of games today.  It was a lot of fun.  Hermana Preston from Arizona, is our new companion so we´re in a trio.  She is sooooo FUNNY!  Our weird ridiculous sarcastic humor is pretty much the same.  Yep.   Between me, her, and Hma. Fuentes...it´s reeeeallllly hard to do missionary work.  ha.  We probably laugh more the half the time.  Ya probably a little too much....more then we should but hey you´d go crazy if you didn´t have some fun out here.  Best companioñship ever!

 

You ask about the weather?  Well the weather...hm that´s a subject we use a lot in contacting people, so I´ve gotten pretty good at talking about the weather in Spanish.  Anyways it was really nice and warm when I first arrived, but lately it´s been raining a lot.   It doesn´t usually rain too hard, but I´m glad Dad that you bought me that raincoat.  It´s been super windy on some days too.  Sometimes so bad I can´t sleep, but I love it here. I finally started to recognize people on the street.  Since the day I´ve gotten here I say Hello to everyone and talk to everyone.  I´m a true believer of that and it´s worked for me.  In fact my very first day here...one of the first people I simply said hi to kept talking to me.  Now he´s getting baptized!  It´s the Elder´s baptism though because he lives in their area.  Oh well! 

My advice you ask to that girl going to BYU that wants to be on the Ballroom Company....um I dunno.  Just practice really hard, take ballroom classes, get to know the people, then audition...yep that´s about all I got.  Speaking of dance the workshop this week was a ton of success!!!!!  We did salsa this week, because that´s what all the latin americans requested, then some didn´t even show who requested it, but that´s okay because we gained 5 new investigators from it!  woo-hoo!  See this is what I love and what makes me happy.  Seeing the joy come from those I teach!  I can´t wait to have children someday.  Everyone here says they want my American accent.  my goal is to get rid of that accent before I leave so they will mistake me for a Spaniard since some Spaniards here have blonde hair and blue eyes like me.  They´re very different than South Americans.

 

It´s also funny to me that everyone here where´s shirts with an American saying or logo on it and they have no clue what it says.  It´s so funny because some are like really ridiculous.  Anyways it´s fun.  I love Spain and I love this work!  We have so many baptisms to come this month.  Not enough time in the day to visit all the many investigators we have it´s hard.   As far as training goes we have done everything the book has asked us to do up to week 8.  It seemed to focus a lot on the Book of Mormon and the importance of it this week.  We really needed that reminder because a lot of our investigators have been having doubts on the Book of Mormon.  I learned that you can teach them every lesson, but until they read the Book of Mormon and ask in faith if it is true, they will not receive an answer.  And once they receive that answer then they will know that the Book of Mormon is true.  I know the Book of Mormon to be the word of God as well as the Bible.  This is the God´s kingdom established again on the earth.  I love being a missionary and will continue to help build the kingdom. 
Love you all!!!!!!  Have a fantastic week!!!!!  Write me...okay love you bye.
Hermana Walker

Cameron Working Hard

Dear Family,

What a week! While the days at times may be long and full of work, the weeks seem to fly by. Last Monday our bishop had his first child. It is a little girl named Sophia. As you can imagine he is happier, more excited, and tired than ever. 

 Tuesday we went to visit Marinez (probably for the last time). She isn't quite ready to put the gospel into practice. She is one of the most interesting persons I have ever met, but she doesn't want it enough. She's not "hungry and thirsty" to change her miserable state of life. She tells us every visit how unhappy she is, but doesn't do anything about it. There's the answer. I am certain that some time in the future she will be more willing to apply the principles of the gospel. After our visit there, we said goodbye to our Ward mission leader, Clauber. He is moving to the other ward in the city. He is the most awesome Ward mission leader I have ever had. He fed us pizza when we went to his house, and on Thursday we helped him move. At least he still goes to church in the same building as us. 

On  Wednesday we had interviews with President. I already know what mom's question will be. Did you pass? Well, I'm still on the mission, so I guess that means yes. The meeting was wonderful. He taught a lot about ht importance of the book of Mormon. It being the keystone of our religion. If the book of mormon fails to be true, so does everything else that we teach. Well, good thing it's true. We taught that if we really believe the book if Mormon is true, we will commit to live according to everything it teaches. That is true conversion. The book really is the key to everything. He invited us to help our investigators have greater conviction in the book. Do everything to help them read, pray, and act. We need to trust in the promise that if they read and pray, they will have an answer. We need to help them establish a habit to study and help them to apply what they learn to their lives. After the training we got DVD players to use for our work. There are DVDs that accompany Preach my Gospel (the missionary guidebook). It is a real blessing to see the principles put into action and use those same methods in our work. As you know, with every blessing, there is a risk that someone will use it for bad. A DVD player could be used for slacking off...risky, but also a blessing.

We worked a lot with Eleziene this week. Her son, Yohan was baptized on Sunday, yesterday (photos attached). She is a very sincere person that is looking to better the lives of her children. What is better is we are getting close to convince Maykon to date her. I hope to one day get a wedding invite from those two.

Adriano, Rosane and Ramom. They area  great family. Adriano who is the only possible in the family for baptism at the moment, is a bit indecisive. He really wants to be baptized, and I believe it won't take long, but he also is afraid that his Grandma will shun him if he does. Rosane keeps dropping hints like, if I get baptized in your church one day, or, when I serve a mission when I'm older.... It drives me crazy that I can't just baptize her now. She has to be married. Ramom is also progressing well. He needs to go to church and that's it. If Adriano gets baptized we'll give him the priesthood quickly so he can baptize his brother.

The church is true being guided by a living prophet. Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. Looking for happiness, peace, love, etc? It's here.

Love,

Elder Walker

Marissa's First Baptism

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Not a huge holiday here.  hardly anyone goes full out or dresses up and if they do it´s usually a witch or a devil.  For all I know people could think that we are dressed up as missionaries.  The ward through a really good party though! 

 

So the thing I didn´t mention that we do as missionaries besides sitting in the MTC studying all day, praying a lot for people, and giving lessons to investigators is BAPTIZE!!!!!!!!  Yes that is right I had my first baptism this Saturday Juan Pablo from Columbia.  It was wonderful and reminded me why I am here.  It gets hard lesson after lesson and no baptisms, but when there is one it reminds you that success is possible.  We also promised him that if he was baptized he would find work....the day after his baptism bam!  he did.

 

DANCE CLASSES huge success.  We have received so many new investigators and future investigators through the great worldly attraction of dance!  There is a spirit felt through music and dance that sometimes cannot be felt through words. The first class was a huge success but that night was frustrating putting it together because the other branch had a party in our space for dance.  The chapel isn´t very big so we had it outside on the soccer field but then everyone from the other branch wanted to combine and join but do their stuff first.  I was a little flustered at first with them interupting my dance class and I thought it was rude but by the end of the party everyone wanted to learn cha-cha.  So I ended up having more than double the people at the beginning of the class.  It was a miracle in disguise because all the people who were not members had so much fun with the dancing that after my spiritual thought at the end they all wanted to come to church the next day.  We had over 10 PEOPLE in church that next day!  Really neat because it´s really hard here to get one even two to church.  Well that news got back to president and he told the zone leaders, serving here in Zaragoza, that he was really impressed and excited about the new missionaries here.  He sent me a personal text saying how proud he was of us and our success.  From there out of all the missionaries in the mission we made it on the mission news!  Woo-hoo!  It has continued these last two weeks to be successful.  Lot´s of Argentines in the ward so I did Tango and they all just drink it up like soup.

 

We had intercanbios which means just a missionary exchange.  I went to Sabedell for 3 days which is the city or outskirt right outside of Barcelona.  Lot´s of fun experiences to tell there but not enough time to tell it all. 

 

Our new Piso is a mansion and brand new.  All the missionaries that saw it are jealous.  President says that we went from the worst apt. in the mission to the best!   haha!  President visited our new Piso personally and loved it so much that he´s sticking 2 more Hermana´s with us there.  So today we get a new companion Hermana Preston.  We will be in a trio for a couple of weeks until the new Hermana that is supposed to be there gets her visa.  Hermana Smith, my MTC companion, got her visa and is now in Barc. 

 

I love this work and have an awesome district!!!!  Be good, I love you!!!!  The church is true!!!!

 

Hermana Walker

Hermana Cominadora, Spain Barcelona Mission

First Baptism in Zaragosa Juan Pablo

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints